A Guide To Construction Project Planning and Scheduling

Construction planning and scheduling are the keys to saving time and money while setting your projects up for success.

Without a process to manage costs and budgets, most lose time, money, and reputation to expensive delays.

Together, they are critical phases to integrating all your project management activities across an entire construction project from start to finish. They’re different but inseparable. One won’t work without the other.

Construction planning comes first and includes defining all of the relevant processes, procedures, and policies you need to put in place to meet the needs of a specific project. Once the construction project is planned, scheduling takes those high-level processes and breaks them down into specific actions.

Then, you’ll place those steps into a calendar or workflow so that deliverables stay on track.

You need to quickly take all project specifications — including resources, communications, risks, and procurement — and slot them into your workflow.

Planning is the “what” you will do, scheduling is the “how” and “when” you will do everything included in your plan.

A solid plan is the foundation you use to deliver on time efficiently and accurately. Knowing how to do both will help you grow your construction business, project after project.

Construction planning and scheduling are integral components of construction management. Let’s take a look at both construction schedules and planning separately.  

Construction planning

Construction planning encompasses the initial phase of project management, where project objectives, requirements, and constraints are defined. Key considerations in construction planning include site analysis, risk assessment, and the development of strategies to address potential challenges. 

Construction scheduling

A construction project schedule involves the creation of a detailed timeline that identifies when specific tasks and activities will be executed throughout the project lifecycle. Project managers use scheduling tools to allocate resources, establish dependencies between tasks, and set milestones. 

These processes require careful coordination, collaboration, and ongoing evaluation from the project manager to ensure that tasks are executed efficiently and under the defined objectives.

Without a process to manage costs and budgets, most lose time, money, and reputation to expensive delays.

Together, they are critical phases to integrating all your project management activities across an entire construction project from start to finish. They’re different but inseparable. One won’t work without the other.

Construction planning comes first and includes defining all of the relevant processes, procedures, and policies you need to put in place to meet the needs of a specific project. Once the construction project is planned, scheduling takes those high-level processes and breaks them down into specific actions.

Then, you’ll place those steps into a calendar or workflow so that deliverables stay on track.

You need to quickly take all project specifications — including resources, communications, risks, and procurement — and slot them into your workflow.

Planning is the “what” you will do, scheduling is the “how” and “when” you will do everything included in your plan.

A solid plan is the foundation you use to deliver on time efficiently and accurately. Knowing how to do both will help you grow your construction business, project after project.

Construction project management helps ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget, meet quality standards, and ensure safety protocols for your crew.

Planning clarifies responsibilities between owners, builders, and tradespeople, leading to excellent communication and teamwork.

“When I'm scheduling, the main thing I’m thinking about is how to make sure your trades are all working together. I have to make sure, carpenters finish on a certain day and drywall starts the next day, or add in a day of cushion. If it rains, and you have to move the date, everything after the drywall has to get moved back, too.”

Javier Enciso Jr.
Founder and President of ENC C&D

By maintaining the correct documentation of all phases of your project planning, you’ll not only stay on track for your current project. Still, you will also build a reference for future projects.

Proper planning will help you organize all aspects of your day — from daily reports to change orders — so that you can close out smoothly when the job is ready to wrap.

Project planning gives you the documentation you need so you can:

• Reduce costs, accurately predict cash flow, and proactively track project costs

• Save time by automating workflows to reduce manual efforts during the construction process and use digital tools to increase efficiency

• Create an audit trail for documenting the entire project that can then be shared easily with key stakeholders

• Increase transparency by keeping everyone in the loop and proactively answering questions

• Make all your tasks and project plans centrally available and open to everyone who might need to see them

• Take greater control by implementing repeatable processes, investing in tools to manage your crews’ work time, and tracking overall productivity

• Keep your clients and stakeholders on the same page and up to date on their responsibilities

• Use the calendar to promote clear communication between project managers, crews, subcontractors, vendors, and all stakeholders

• Schedule additional team members, inspectors, subcontractors, etc., to join the project at the right times

Project planning and employee scheduling for construction set you up for success across all of the fundamental stages of your build.

Yes, there’s a lot to get done. These steps will help you assemble all the pieces for a stable construction project plan.

1. Create a business case

Before you can break ground, you need a complete business case to know:

• The details of the job

• If it’s something you want to take on

• What it will take to get the job done

You need to map out the crew size you’ll need, subcontractors, resources, and the total budget to cover labor, materials, fees, equipment rentals, and permits.

This will give you a one-document view (called Project Initiation Document - PID) outlining everything you’ll need to finish the project.

Pro tip: If you’ve done a similar project before, use that as a baseline for future business cases.

2. Lay out your goals

Take the resources you gathered in step one and use them to build a high-level strategy on how you’ll map out the project.

Use the SMART system (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based) to ensure all your project goals tie back to the business case.

Once you know what you want to achieve, you can list out the broader project areas that will help you get there:

• The technology and construction methods you’ll need

• Defining work tasks

• Time management and project milestones

• The relationships between tasks and how they can potentially impact one another

Some parts of the job can’t be finished until another is completed. Changes in materials used by one subcontractor could affect what needs to be done by the next.

Mapping out your goals and how you’ll get there is critical for this step.

3. Get the entire team on board and estimate resources

Get your team together to review the plan or tag them in your project management software as you begin to assign responsibilities.

This allows everyone to see what you expect them to do, ask questions, and identify potential problems.

When each crew member understands their role and how they contribute to the team's greater success, you’ll keep them more engaged and productive.

Make it clear how they’re expected not just to do the core of their job but also to:

• Report on progress

• Let you know about incidents

• Provide any updates that affect the project schedule

4. Make a list of all the info and tools from your plan and estimate activity durations

Before you can schedule how long individual phases of each job will take, you need to be crystal clear about who’s doing what and what they’ll need to get their part of the project done.

Using your project plan, list out all the subcontractors who’ll be involved in each phase. Ask them to estimate how much time they’ll need to get their materials together, what they’ll use, and how long their step will take.

A complete list of the materials used in the build is key before you begin scheduling.

Get a list of requirements and code inspections from your local office and add these checkpoints to your schedule.

Restrictions vary based on the particulars of your job, so doing this research now will help you create a smoother schedule and ensure that your project complies with local construction regulations.

5. Prioritize tasks, no matter how big or small

Knowing which to-dos are mission-critical and which could be postponed is a big part of project planning.

A complete list of every task, broken down into the basic steps needed to complete each, will help you ensure your schedule covers everything. It also gives you a line of sight to see how delays in one area affect the entire job.

Don’t forget to include every step that affects your work, even if it’s not something you or your crew must finish yourself.

Keep procurement, deliveries, and financial needs in mind and connected to each step so you can see how they’ll impact your tasks.

6. Create milestones and put everything in order

Now that you’ve got all the essential parts listed based on what’s most important and how long they’ll each take, look at the major phases of the project from a high level.

Project milestones, like completing a foundation or adding plumbing, can create a larger-scale schedule that gives you a more straightforward view of the project.

With those stages in place, take each of the smaller, more manageable tasks and break them down into a list within each phase. This will give you significant milestones and the smaller steps to complete them.

7. Add up how long each task will take

Take the information from your own business or the quotes from your subcontractors and add a duration to each task. Give them a start and finish date, using the prioritization you did in step two.

You might have to move individual tasks around until you find the right balance. Don’t forget to give yourself buffer room for delays, holidays, bad weather, etc.

Make sure your schedule is realistic, and you can commit to all the dates you set. You don’t want to feel pressure to cut corners in the future to hit a date in your calendar.

Be honest, get feedback from your team, and give everyone enough time to do their jobs right without feeling stressed.

8. Assign and inform all tasks owners

Let each individual know what they’re in charge of getting done and by what date.

This can get confusing with a long list of contractors and other vendors, so keeping your schedule up to date and organized is essential.

A digital tool that will let you organize teams by specialty, tag crew members, send automatic due date notifications, color-code tasks by milestone, and more is a great way to make clear communication a breeze.

9. Schedule reviewing

No matter how hard you prepare, things will come up, and your schedule must change. That’s okay.

Don’t think of your schedule as finished on day one. It’s a flexible guide, like a map.

There might be more than one way to get where you’re going. With a solid schedule, you’ll know how to get there even when things that you weren’t expecting pop up.

Schedule regular reviews to examine the schedule, how well it’s working right now, and any bumps you can see in the road. As each project progresses, update it so that you’re anticipating what you’ll need later on.

Your project won’t stay on track just because you have a schedule. You and your team need to stay on top of it each day, check that it’s working the way you need, and adapt it based on what you learn as you go.

With a construction team management tool such as Hubstaff, it’s easy to keep construction crews and projects on time. Automated time tracking based on location plus scheduling, invoicing, and payments means you just need one app to manage your business.

With the app’s Geofenced Job Sites feature, you can use geofencing technology to clock in your crew automatically the second they arrive or leave a work zone. You don’t have to track them manually, wonder if they’re on the job, or travel to any work sites to check in.

Once they’ve tracked time from their mobile devices, you can quickly approve their time cards within seconds and pay them however you choose.

Use Hubstaff to track how long any project takes and monitor said job’s budget to ensure you are coming in right where you need to be. You can bill your clients and send reports directly from Hubstaff, saving you time and admin work each week.

Time is money. Successful construction projects with solid planning and a comprehensive schedule will save you both.

The extra work you put into them at the beginning of a job will be more than worth it when you see how they make it smoother to deliver projects on time and within budget.